


Just Rewards

by Sholio



Category: White Collar
Genre: Case Fic, Friendship, Gen, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-28
Updated: 2012-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-31 20:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent Henry Scott went to Quantico with Peter Burke. Some things have changed since then. Some things haven't. For <a href="http://collarcorner.livejournal.com/15662.html?thread=409646#t409646">this prompt</a> at CollarCorner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Rewards

Joint operations with other FBI departments were always a total crapshoot, as far as Henry Scott was concerned. Sometimes you ended up working with the scrapings from the bottom of the apple barrel. But to balance the scales, sometimes you got to meet up with old buddies that you hadn't seen in years.

He'd gone through Quantico with Peter Burke, and for a while, they'd both worked out of the New York field office. They'd hung out on the weekends, along with some of the other junior agents, watching football with a cold six-pack or going out to catch a Yankees game from the cheap seats. Then Henry transferred to Chicago, and since neither one of them were keeping-in-touch kind of guys, it'd been awhile.

Peter looked about like Henry remembered -- a little older, maybe with a little less hair. "Damn, man," Peter said, dragging him in for a quick, suitably manly back-pounding hug. "You look great. How's life with Violent Crimes?"

Henry shrugged. "It's the job, same as it's always been. Catch the bad guys before they catch you. What about you? Heard you got hitched."

Peter grinned, the sort of shmoopy grin that recently-married men would get about their wives before the shine wore off the relationship. Henry could have sworn he'd heard that Peter got himself shackled some ten years ago, but maybe this was a different wife. 

"Yeah, Elizabeth," Peter said. "Once we get the case squared away, you should come over for dinner. You can meet El and see the house."

"Peter Burke, family man." Henry shook his head. "I always thought you were married to the job instead."

Peter's shrug was a little embarrassed. "Yeah, maybe, but then you meet the right person and suddenly the rest of it doesn't seem so important anymore. What about you and Lisa?"

Hell, he might've known that topic was going to come up. "Divorced," Henry said. "Seven years ago -- no, more like eight."

"Aw, damn. I'm sorry."

Henry snorted. "I'm not. I miss seeing the kids more often than every other weekend, but I can't say I miss being tied down. Just wait. You'll get bored, start looking around."

"Not gonna happen," Peter said firmly. The tech team showed up just then, and Peter was temporarily distracted as they wired him for sound, giving Henry a minute or two to think about it.

One thing he'd almost forgotten was Peter's weird streak of -- well, Henry wasn't really sure what to call it, naivete or romanticism or maybe just plain old idealism. Whatever it was, it used to be the source of a lot of (mostly) friendly arguments between the two of them, back in the day. They'd argued about recidivism, about crime rates and the causes thereof, about whether the purpose of prison was to punish, reform, or just to warehouse criminals off the streets. When they first got out of Quantico, Henry used to think that Peter was going to end up being a danger to himself and others with his white-knight delusions. The thing about Peter, though, is that he was too sharp to be an easy mark; he seemed to be able to handle himself, and Henry figured that Peter was bound to grow up someday after getting at least some of his idealism beaten out of him by exposure to the real world. It wasn't exactly a _nice_ thought, but, well, it was better than getting gunned down on a streetcorner. Nice guys didn't survive in their line of work.

Right now Peter was the center of a hive of activity as agents buzzed around him, asking him questions even while his shirt was hiked up to his armpits while the techs taped a wire to his chest.

"You're clear on the plan?" Peter said to Henry, and Henry nodded.

"Jones filled me in. I'll be with the group outside." There was one thing he'd been a little unclear on, though. "You're going in with a CI, right?"

"Yeah," Peter said, tugging down his shirt. "Neal."

Caffrey. When Jones was filling him in, he'd said Peter was going in with Caffrey in a casual kind of way, like it happened all the time. As far as Henry could tell, though, Caffrey wasn't even here yet. _All the reliability and dependability that we come to expect from criminals,_ Henry thought wryly. "And where exactly is your CI right now?" he asked.

"He and Diana are running late," Peter said. "They'll be here in a -- actually, here they are now." 

Diana was sleek and gorgeous and looked like she could kick Henry's ass, and Caffrey turned out to be everything Henry had expected: typical petty crook, all dolled up in a thousand-dollar suit and a hat that made him look like something out of an old gangster movie. When introductions went around, Caffrey grinned at Henry and held out a hand. Henry just looked at him; _right,_ like he'd shake hands with a thief if there wasn't a good job-related reason to do it. Besides, Caffrey had the sort of untrustworthy smile that made Henry want to check and make sure his watch was still there.

Caffrey raised his eyebrows, quirked a half-grin at Peter, and wandered over to see what Jones's bunch were up to.

"Just gotta make sure you keep him in front of you, right?" Henry said to Peter.

"What?" Peter said absently, studying blueprints that someone else on his team had shoved into his hands.

"Because you don't want to walk into a den of criminals with another one at your back," Henry clarified.

"Oh." Peter shook his head. "Sorry if there was a misunderstanding. Neal isn't with Garrity's bunch. He's been working with us -- with me -- for a couple of years now." He grinned in a rueful, almost nostalgic kind of way. "You have to check every once in a while to make sure your wallet is still where it's supposed to be, but that's about it."

"Two years, ten years, what difference does it make?" Henry said in disbelief. He'd remembered Peter Burke as a sharp agent, if a little prone to over-romanticizing the job; was it possible Peter could've gotten snowed by some two-bit con artist in a fancy suit? "He's still a crook. He's here because it beats doing time, that's all. I'm telling you, Peter, when you go in there, keep one eye on Garrity, one eye on your CI, and make sure he's the first one in the door, that's all."

There was a sudden cessation of activity from across the room, where Jones, Diana and the CI were all clustered around the main monitoring station. Listening through Peter's wire? Hell, let 'em. Henry knew he hadn't said anything out of line. Certainly nothing that anyone in the Bureau who worked with CIs didn't already know. You never, ever trusted them, and you always assumed that they would double-cross you, given the chance. If it hurt Caffrey's feelings to hear the truth, well, hell, maybe it was time _someone_ admitted it; they all knew it.

Peter, however, slowly set down the blueprints and looked at Henry, a long look, like he'd never seen him before. "Are we going to have a problem?" he asked.

"No," Henry said, surprised and, now, annoyed into stating the flat-out truth, even if it wasn't a very pleasant truth: "I'm just saying, you gotta keep in mind that CIs are replaceable. Agents aren't."

Dead silence from across the room. Peter opened his mouth and closed it, as a flush spread across his face. He turned away from Henry for a moment. When he turned back, he said tightly, "My CI isn't replaceable. No one on my team is replaceable. What's more, I don't want anyone _near_ this operation who believes that they are. You'll be helping Wyatt." He pointed to a junior agent stringing wires, who looked up in surprise. "Wyatt, this is Special Agent Scott. He'll be assisting you today."

"I --" Henry began.

"I'm the agent in charge, it's my turf, and I just gave you an order. If you don't like it, take it up with Hughes."

With that, Peter brushed past him, while Henry tried to figure out how that had gone so bad so fast. Maybe Peter had misunderstood -- _replaceable_ didn't necessarily mean _expendable_ , which was apparently how Peter had heard it. All Henry had meant was that a criminal was a criminal, and they were all pretty much interchangeable. The job of men like himself and Peter was to put them in prison, and the fact that some of them, like Caffrey, could be a little bit useful along the way didn't change that incontrovertible fact. It was just common sense ... wasn't it?

He turned to follow Peter, but paused when he saw Peter stop in his tracks in the middle of the room. Jones, Diana, and the CI, Caffrey, were all grinning at Peter's obvious discomfiture.

"Oh, dammit," Peter said. "You heard all of that, didn't you?"

"You defending Caffrey's honor?" Diana said, and laughed. "Sorry, boss. Every word."

"Your reputation as a hardass is safe with us," Jones added.

Someone shoved an empty spool of wire into Henry's hands. "I think you were supposed to be helping me ... sir?" the tech -- Wyatt -- said in a clipped voice that might have been due to being busy and harried; at least, it stopped short of outright insubordination. "Could you take this out to the supply truck and bring me another spool of wire? Sir."

Even the bottom-rung agents were being pissy with him. Taking a cue from Peter, maybe. Henry thought about arguing, then shook his head -- not worth it, what the hell, he could figure this out later, but unlike Peter, he wasn't unprofessional enough to get riled up right before an op. As he turned to go outside, he glimpsed Caffrey getting wired for sound, and Peter next to him, leaning in close, his expression earnest and a little worried, giving last-minute advice or instructions. Neither of them looked in Henry's direction at all, but Diana tossed him a flat, unreadable glance and then turned away.

 

* * *

 

The op went off without a hitch. After it was all over but the cleanup, Henry wandered over to Peter, who was leaning against the side of the FBI van, chatting with Jones, Diana, and Caffrey. The agents were all relaxed and grinning in the warm glow that, in Henry's experience, always came after a successful mission: no one hurt, the bad guys in handcuffs, everyone loose-limbed and loose-lipped as their adrenaline crashed. Caffrey was idly tossing his hat in the air and catching it.

When they saw Henry, everyone went quiet. Henry wondered if it was just his imagination that they seemed to close ranks, everyone getting a little closer together. Henry found himself hesitating, but pushed on. "Hey, Peter. Are we still on for dinner at your place tonight?"

"Yeah, about that," Peter said. His eyes were flinty. "I think El and I have other plans tonight, actually. Gonna have to take a rain check."

"I'm in town tomorrow, too," Henry said, somewhat warily. He was aware that he'd screwed up with Peter, but he still couldn't figure out exactly what line he'd crossed.

"Are you?" Peter's tone was cool. "We're busy tomorrow, too. Funny how these things come up."

"I don't think you're available for socializing at all this week, are you, boss?" Diana inquired sweetly. Caffrey leaned his hip against the van with a slight smile, and said nothing at all.

"Yeah," Peter said. "My social calendar fills up this time of year." He looked at Henry again, and this time he'd softened a little -- more than anything, he just looked sad. "Good to see you again, Henry, for old time's sake."

Caffrey glanced sideways at Peter, gave him a soft little half-grin, and nudged his shoulder.

"Yeah, you too," Henry said, still baffled, but increasingly annoyed, too. It appeared that Peter was digging his own hole, so he may as well leave him to it. "Hey, look me up if you're in Chicago, huh?"

"Sure," Peter said, in a tone that implied the opposite.

Henry headed for his rental car. Behind him, he heard Neal say, "So what's Elizabeth making for dinner, anyway?"

Jones laughed, and Diana said, "Subtle, Caffrey."

"Hey, I'm just saying, if there were going to be extra portions ... it would be a _crime_ to let Elizabeth's cooking go to waste, and that would make me an accomplice, Peter."

"If you want to come over for dinner, Neal, just say so," Peter said, from the sound of it trying to sound stern while struggling to suppress laughter.

The friendly banter cut off when Henry slammed the door of the rental car. _None of my business,_ Henry thought, tossing his jacket into the passenger seat. Peter was a grown-up, and whatever he thought he was playing at with Caffrey, he'd have no one but himself to blame when he eventually reaped his just rewards for what he'd sown.


End file.
